EntrePastors

21/10/2024

Are you a pastor who is sick and tired of the never-ending financial stress of barely making it from one paycheck to the next?

Are you fed up with the pressure that comes from your salary being directly tied to the charitable donations (or lack thereof) of others?

Are you willing to establish a stream of revenue that comes from a business that you own and operate apart from your church duties?

If so, I’d like to invite you to join me and Les Hughes for a workshop we are offering this coming Thursday. Our goal at EntrePastors is to help you lean into your God-given skills and passions to serve others and solve a problem in the marketplace. We don’t have a one-size-fits-all approach to business. In this workshop we will help you discover an idea for a business that fits YOU!

Here’s the link to learn more and get registered if you’re interested.

Join us for a workshop for pastors: 4 Steps To a Profitable Business Idea

18/10/2024

17/10/2024

YES or NO?

Well…which is it?

“What’s the question,” you ask?

I don’t know…but you do.

Most likely you are facing a situation in your life that requires a YES or NO response, but up to this point you have been responding with indecision, procrastination, and over-thinking.

Stop it!

Make a decision. Then move forward. Today!

Recently I was in a group coaching call with my friend Vincent Pugliese and he made this statement:

“If you want to find an unsuccessful person, look for the person who takes a really long time to pay for a low-ticket item.”

For context, he was speaking to people like me who run a paid community of one kind or another and was encouraging us to put serious deadlines on our offers as a way of helping people make a decision rather than allowing them to waffle on and on in indecision.

And he is so right.

As we have been growing our EntrePastors community over the past three years, we have made many low-ticket offers for various workshops, courses, and membership products. Some examples of the price tags on these offers are $1, $7, $9, $29, $49, etc.

Sadly, I have watched pastors agonize over making such purchases, and true to Vincent’s statement, these are the same people who struggle to find success in breaking out of pastoral poverty through launching an entrepreneurial business of their own.

As I write this, I feel both anger and frustration rising up inside of me. I’m angry that for many pastors, a low-ticket offer as listed above poses enough of a financial challenge to cause them to even have to stop and count the cost. And I feel frustration as I watch them flounder in indecision over whether or not to make an investment into their future.

I know that if they surround themselves with a supportive community, take decisive action, and DO THE WORK, the day will soon come when they will not need to over-think, procrastinate, and waffle in indecision over such a small price.

So back to that decision facing you today.

Which is it?

YES or NO?

16/10/2024

I’m so thankful for the work Les Hughes and I get to do through our EntrePastors platform. Recently one of our members (Mark Foster) shared this unsolicited testimonial about how we have impacted his life and future. I don’t share this to brag about ourselves, although I am proud of the work we’re doing. I share this so that it may serve as a beacon of hope to someone who finds themselves stuck and frustrated in their current state of pastoral poverty. There’s a better way forward and we would love to walk alongside you to help you get there.

Hey everyone, I just wanted to jump on here and give an unsolicited testimonial.

I have been a part of EntrePastors since the beginning of 2023. I started out in their 12-week business builders academy with 3 other guys. I had been a pastor for 20 years and had never started a business of my own. I was just tired of feeling trapped and ready to make a change.

My first contact was with Jon Sanders. I told him my story. The details don’t matter, because it is the same story that is shared by Jon and Les every week on their podcast and social media. They encouraged me to join the 12-week class and worked with me to make it happen financially. I literally didn’t have the money without making a sacrifice. My wife and I decided to take the risk. I’ll never regret it. By the time the 12-week class was over, I had all the framework to move forward.

From there I joined their monthly membership to gain access to the weekly calls. I have watched them grow and continue to provide value to our community. In all of that time, I have only missed one of our weekly calls. There were tons of times I wanted to miss. Why? Because making change is hard. It’s not an overnight thing. There were plenty of weeks that I showed up, especially to the monthly progress check-in with nothing to show, or tell.

These guys were always in my corner. Anytime I have reached out, they have been there to encourage, push back, and kick my butt when needed. It took nearly 12 months, and a couple of pivots, to see movement. But things are moving now! Not only do I now have a legitimate business that is nearly matching and exceeding my monthly church income, but I have a real path, for the first time in my adult life, to actually be able to retire, own my own home, and provide for my family in ways I never thought possible.

My wife has even caught the bug, and she is starting her own business as well, and working directly with an expert I met through the EntrePastors platform. We are changing our story, and hopefully, the story of our children and grandchildren.
We have dreams and are starting to see them come true.
All of this started with EntrePastors.

They didn’t do the work for me. I didn’t want them to. They just never gave up on me. They also introduced me to other industry experts who have added so much value to my life, that it would be hard to put a dollar figure on it.

For context, I have had a goal since joining to have a $10,000 month. I’m really close to hitting that goal and have had several months where I have had $5,000 or more.

When I joined EntrePastors, I didn’t have $99/month for the membership. All I had was a belly full of average and willingness to throw myself into it if someone would point me in the right direction. They did.

Pastors are a unique, and sometimes frustrating group of people. We have lived for so long with one narrative that it's hard to experience the mind shift necessary. Maybe that’s not you. Cool. It’s a lot of us.

Without any hesitation, I would, and have, recommended the EntrePastors platform to any pastor or ministry professional looking to break out of the poverty cycle and dependence on church donations to keep your family, but only just, from the soup line.

If you are good with that old system, and you're satisfied, then I’m not against you. But if you’re reading this and you have been even toying with the idea of joining to see what could be accomplished. Do it.

Just be aware. No one is going to do the hard work for you. Being a member of the group doesn’t guarantee success. That’s not what this is. But if you work the plan, you don’t give up, you’re willing to let go of your old limiting mindsets, and you're ready to learn to think differently, and take responsibility for your own situation, then there is no reason to think you can’t succeed. And if you’re still not convinced, and you want to chat. Hit me up. I’d be happy to.

Jon and Les didn’t ask me to post this. They don’t need my advertisement. But I needed to say it. Got ears?

14/10/2024

Recently I had the opportunity to share the mission and message of EntrePastors with my friend Karl Vaters, on The Church Lobby podcast.

I’m thankful for any chance I get to help pastors break free from pastoral poverty and lean into a new season of ministry that for most, will look drastically different (and be more life-giving) than how we have traditionally defined and shown up as full-time vocational pastors.

Feel free to give this episode a listen. Here’s the link:

Quickly and easily listen to The Church Lobby for free!

10/10/2024

If you are a pastor who is CONSISTENTLY wrestling with the following…

✅ Chronic stress from the never-ending, unrealistic expectations placed upon you by others.
✅ Feeling undervalued and unappreciated when ALL that you’re doing is still not enough.
✅ Struggling with subpar financial compensation and the endless pressure of trying to make ends meet.
✅ Exhausted from the inability to take a real vacation and time away from church duties.
✅ Disillusionment from spending most of your time trying to please complaining church folks instead of actually having real impact through ministry.

…I want you to know there is a better way forward.

The landscape of pastoring is changing.

And you have permission to step into it.

26/09/2024

I’m listening to the book ‘Elon Musk’ by Walter Isaacson right now. Here is a quote that stood out to me this morning:

“Musk’s space adventure had begun as a non-profit endeavor to inspire interest in a mission to Mars, but now he had the combination of motivations that would mark his career. He would do something audacious that was driven by a grand idea, but he also wanted it to be practical and profitable so that it could sustain itself.”

For context, this quote comes from the part of the story where Elon decides instead of creating a non-profit approach to reaching Mars, he would instead create a for-profit company as a way to sustain the work and ultimately accomplish the mission.

I see a great lesson in this that those of us who feel a strong sense of calling into Christian ministry (pastors, missionaries, nonprofits, etc.) would do well to learn.

Like Musk’s desire to colonize Mars with human beings, we too have audacious dreams and desires to impact the world through the life-changing message of the gospel. The mission compels us.

But unlike Musk, too often we cling to weak non-profit models in order to fund the mission we feel called to. This severe lack of funding adds unneeded, but very real pressure for the leaders at the forefront of the mission.

What if we found better ways to fund the mission?

What if we encouraged pastors, missionaries, and other charity workers to create a stream of revenue that was not dependent upon the unreliable donations of others?

What if we helped those leaders stay on mission for the long haul because we helped them create revenue that sustains itself?

20/09/2024

As I’ve been told quite a few times over my years in pastoral ministry, it’s one of the biggest reasons we go into the profession. I guess the secret’s out! 😀

18/09/2024

“...because money is the root of all evil…”

I heard the young youth pastor make this statement as he was explaining to me why he was concerned with my proposal that he establish a strong source of income beyond the meager $20,000 annual salary he was being paid from the church he was working “full-time” for.

Since he knew that “money is the root of all evil,” he wanted to make sure he didn’t have too much of it for fear of the darkness he might be inviting into his life.

“Wait, stop. Who told you money is the root of all evil,” I asked.

“I heard it my whole life growing up in church,” he replied.

I challenged him to go grab the nearest Bible he could find. Then I said, please look up 1 Timothy 6:6-10 and read it out loud to me. Here are words he read:

6 But godliness with contentment is great gain, 7 for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. 8 But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. 9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

When he got done reading this passage of Scripture, I asked him to tell me again what a root of evil was.

He didn’t catch it.

I had to lead him back through that passage several more times before he was able to zero in on what I was trying to help him see.

The Bible does not say that “MONEY is the root of all evil,” as this young man had been told his entire life by broke pastors and other scarcity-minded Christians in church!

Instead, the Bible says “the LOVE of money is A root of all kinds of evils.” Big difference!!!

Like so many other pastors before him, this young man was preparing for a life of financial poverty and barely scraping by because he had been given such a warped view of money.

I hope I was able to help him see this important issue through a new lens. I hope I was able to convince him how much MORE he would be able to serve others in ministry if he actually had an abundance of money instead of a desperate lack of it.

17/09/2024

Well…it happened again this week.

I heard from a pastor I know who has been “let go” from the church he has been serving and trying to turn around for the past few years.

Like many dying congregations, the people said they wanted to grow and were willing to do whatever was necessary to impact their community…as long as it did not require them to do anything different than what they had been doing for years.

The pastor was up against a leadership battle that he ultimately lost.

So here now is my pastor friend, trying to figure out where to go and what to do next.

Like most pastors, he was already desperately underpaid and living just above poverty.

Like most pastors, he was 100% dependent upon the church for his income.

Like most pastors, he has absolutely zero dollars in savings to provide time to evaluate his options moving forward.

And like too many pastors before him, he will likely grasp onto the first not-so-good offer from another dying congregation who will say all the right things in order to have a “full-time” pastor and the cycle will start all over again.

And somewhere in this all-too-common story, he will try to convince himself and others that this has all been a part of “God’s will.” (It sounds very spiritual when we attribute our struggles to the will of God.)

I’m getting so tired of this narrative.

What if there was a better and healthier way?

What if my pastor friend had an incredible income already in place from a business that he owns and operates apart from his church duties?

How much more boldly could he have stared down the church bullies and power brokers who resisted his leadership and the changes he was trying to implement?

How many more healthy options could he explore in this season if he was not in desperate need of a paycheck right NOW to provide for his family?

These are the stories we seek to change through our EntrePastors platform. I dream of the day when this narrative is nothing more than a memory of how things used to be.

13/09/2024

This is what it feels like to be me some days on the internet! 🤣

30/08/2024

Tomorrow marks the 3-year anniversary from the launch of the very first episode of the EntrePastors podcast.

It’s been an amazing journey since I had the privilege of meeting my friend and co-founder, Les Hughes, in a mastermind group. As we got to know each other, we discovered we shared some similar aspects of our lives:

✅We both grew up as pastor’s kids.

✅We both had extensive background, experience, and knowledge in the pastoral world.

✅We both had experienced the very real struggles of pastoral poverty (being broke in ministry).

✅We both had decided to break free from the narrative of the “starving pastor” in our own lives to get to a place of financial abundance.

✅We both were on a journey of entrepreneurialism and saw that as the vehicle to better provide for our families and our futures.

✅We both had a heart for pastors and a desire to serve them by sharing our own stories and leadership in order to help them experience the same freedoms we were beginning to enjoy.

I’m thankful for the impact we’ve already seen in some awesome pastor’s lives and stories. And I’m confident that we are just getting started!